AN MP has given his backing to launch of multi-million pound support to enhance mental health wellbeing of RAF personnel.

A new report from the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, the RAF’s leading welfare charity, finds that the biggest challenges our serving RAF and their partners are experiencing include mental wellbeing difficulties, social isolation and partner employment opportunities.

The report, Meeting the Needs of the Serving RAF Community, was launched on Thursday at a House of Commons reception attended by Mark Francois, MP for Rayleigh and Wickford, the Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson MP and the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Hillier. The research reached almost 10 per cent of serving RAF personnel and was conducted with the support of the RAF.

The key findings include 52 per cent of RAF personnel said they had experienced community or social isolation within the past few years.

In response to the findings, the RAF Benevolent Fund announced a multi-million pound response to the RAF’s key needs, as highlighted by the research in the report, and is in addition to other on-going work and support already provided.

Some of this will be delivered through grant funding, while other programmes will be tested via pilot schemes first to ensure that they are effective and valued before consideration is given to rolling them out further.

Mark Francois said: “As a former Armed Forces Ministers and as a member of the Defence Select Committee, I am aware of the sacrifices our Armed Forces make every day, serving their country. I whole-heartedly support the measures announced today by the RAF Benevolent Fund and congratulate them on their wide-reaching welfare initiatives, targeting the entire RAF Family.”

Air Vice-Marshal David Murray, Chief Executive of the RAF Benevolent Fund, said: “If we didn’t know it already, this project has reminded us that RAF personnel and their families demonstrate incredible resilience on a daily basis, as they wrestle with the challenges of modern-day Service life. However, given the increasing complexity of some of the issues faced, there remains a requirement for targeted support to assist serving RAF families during periods of need.

“Working closely with the RAF, the Fund has developed a package of practical initiatives that will make a real difference to the lives of RAF personnel and their families in the areas that have emerged from the research.”

In his foreword to the report, Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson said: “The extensive support that the charity currently has in place is already impressive and highly regarded by both myself and the Chief of the Air Staff.

"But the additional projects the Fund has committed to develop in the coming years, in direct response to this report, will make a substantive difference to RAF personnel and their families in need and distress.”